15 killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza school sheltering displaced persons

An Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood killed at least 15 Palestinians on Saturday, hours after two strikes in the occupied West Bank killed nine militants including a local Hamas commander, Hamas said.

The Israeli military claimed that the school was being used as a command centre for Hamas, to hide militants and manufacture weapons. Hamas, meanwhile, refuted Israeli claims that it operates from civilian facilities like schools and hospitals.

The Israeli military said the first of two West Bank airstrikes hit a vehicle in a town near the city of Tulkarm, targeting a militant cell it said was on its way to carry out an attack.

A Hamas statement said one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkarm brigades, while its ally Islamic Jihad claimed the other four men who died in the strike as its fighters.

Hours later, a second airstrike in the area targeted another group of militants who had fired on troops, Israel’s military said, during what it described as a counterterrorism operation in Tulkarm.

Earlier on Saturday, Israeli strikes in the enclave killed six people in a house in the southern area of Rafah and two others in Gaza City, Gaza health officials said.

The Israeli military said its forces had struck militants and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in Rafah and elsewhere in the enclave.

The latest strikes in the Palestinian territories came amid Israel’s growing tensions with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group that have fanned fears of a widened conflict in the Middle East.

The US and international partners, including France, Britain, Italy and Egypt, continued diplomatic contacts on Saturday seeking to prevent further regional escalation.

Hamas said it had begun a “broad consultation process” to choose a new leader three days after the assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, who was the face of the group’s international diplomacy. Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel and vowed to retaliate. Israel has not claimed or denied responsibility.

At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials.

The offensive was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

A high-level Israeli delegation made a brief visit to Cairo on Saturday in an attempt to resume Gaza ceasefire negotiations, Egyptian airport authority sources said. The Israeli officials returned to Israel hours later, Israeli media said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of trying to add changes to the “outline” of a potential agreement, referring to a proposal US President Joe Biden laid out in May. Hamas has blamed Netanyahu, saying he does not want to stop the war.

With agency inputs